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  • Egypt and Iran complain about planned World Cup ‘Pride’ match in Seattle

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Egypt and Iran, two Middle East nations that target gays and lesbians, have complained to FIFA over a World Cup soccer match in Seattle that is planned to celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride.

    Leaders in the nation’s soccer federations publicly rebuked the idea of playing the match June 26 at Seattle Stadium, which local organizers say will include a “once-in-a-lifetime moment to showcase and celebrate LGBTQIA+ communities in Washington.”

    In Egypt, the soccer federation issued a statement late Tuesday saying it sent a letter to FIFA “categorically rejecting any activities related to supporting homosexuality during the match.”

    Seattle PrideFest has been organized in the city since 2007 by a nonprofit which designated the June 26 game for celebration before FIFA made the World Cup draw Friday.

    FIFA chose Saturday to allocate the Egypt-Iran game to Seattle instead of Vancouver, where the teams’ group rivals Belgium and New Zealand will play at the same time.

    Already, organizers in Seattle have promoted an art contest for the game, including one entry of a rainbow-flagged sun rising over Mount Rainier as a crab goalie goes for a soccer ball while holding a cup of coffee in its pinchers.

    “With matches on Juneteenth and pride, we get to show the world that in Seattle, everyone is welcome,” Seattle’s Mayor-elect Kate Wilson wrote on social media. “What an incredible honor!”

    FIFA controls only stadiums and official fan zones in World Cup host cities and should have no formal authority over community events like Seattle PrideFest.

    FIFA declined comment Tuesday to the Associated Press, and did not address a question if it would consider switching the Belgium-New Zealand game to Seattle.

    Angry response in Iran, Egypt

    In Iran, where gays and lesbians can face the death penalty, the president of Iran’s Football Federation Mehdi Taj criticized scheduling the match during an interview aired on state television late Monday.

    Taj said Iran would bring up the issue during a FIFA Council meeting in Qatar next week. The longest-serving member of the 37-person council chaired by FIFA President Gianni Infantino is Egypt’s Hany Abo Rida.

    “Both Egypt and we have objected, because this is an unreasonable and illogical move that essentially signals support for a particular group, and we must definitely address this point,” Taj said. State TV on Tuesday confirmed a complaint would be sent to FIFA.

    The Egypt soccer federation led by Ado Rida said of the pride celebration it “completely rejects such activities, which directly contradict the cultural, religious and social values in the region, especially in Arab and Islamic societies.”

    It urged FIFA to stop the celebration to “avoid activities that may trigger cultural and religious sensitivity between the presented spectators of both countries, Egypt and Iran, especially as such activities contradict the cultures and religions of the two countries.”

    Iran had threatened to boycott the World Cup draw in Washington, D.C. over complaints about five of its nine-person delegation, including Taj, not getting visas to enter the United States.

    Iranians are subject to a travel ban imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration and the U.S. in the past has denied visas for those with ties to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, like Taj. Iran ended up sending a smaller delegation including the team’s coach.

    Tensions remain high between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear program, particularly after American warplanes bombed atomic sites in the country during Israel’s 12-day war with the Islamic Republic in June. Unlike the 2022 World Cup, however, Iran is not scheduled to play the United States in the World Cup’s opening matches.

    Seattle’s response

    Asked about the complaint Wednesday, Seattle’s organizing committee said it was “moving forward as planned with our community programming outside the stadium during Pride weekend and throughout the tournament.”

    “The Pacific Northwest is home to one of the nation’s largest Iranian-American communities, a thriving Egyptian diaspora and rich communities representing all nations we’re hosting in Seattle,” spokesperson Hana Tadesse said in a statement. “We’re committed to ensuring all residents and visitors experience the warmth, respect and dignity that defines our region.”

    Iran, Egypt target LGBTQ+ community

    For years, Egyptian police have targeted gays and lesbians, sparking warnings even from the app Grindr in the past. Though Egypt technically does not outlaw homosexuality, authorities frequently prosecute members of the LGBTQ+ community on the grounds of “debauchery,” or “violating public decency.”

    Iran also has targeted the LGBTQ community and its theocracy is believed to have executed thousands of people for their sexuality since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Hard-line former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once famously went as far as to claim during a 2007 visit to the United States: “We don’t have homosexuals like in your country.” A crowd at Columbia University responded by laughing and heckling the leader.

    FIFA dilemma

    FIFA risks being accused of a double standard if it sides with World Cup teams’ federations over the city of Seattle.

    At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, FIFA fiercely defended the right of the host nation’s cultural norms to be respected in full by visiting teams.

    A group of European federations wanted their team captains to wear a “One Love” armband with some rainbow colors that symbolized human rights and diversity, which FIFA and Qatari officials viewed in part as criticism of the emirate criminalizing same-sex relations. Some Wales fans had rainbow hats removed before entering the stadium.

    Qatar also will play in Seattle at the World Cup, on June 24 against a European opponent which could be Italy or Wales.

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    AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report

    ___

    AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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  • Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave $7.1 billion to nonprofits in 2025, a major increase

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The author and philanthropist MacKenzie Scott revealed $7.1 billion in donations to nonprofits in 2025 Tuesday, marking a significant increase in her annual giving from recent years.

    Writing in an essay on her website, Scott said, “This dollar total will likely be reported in the news, but any dollar amount is a vanishingly tiny fraction of the personal expressions of care being shared into communities this year.”

    Scott acknowledged donating $2.6 billion in 2024 and $2.1 billion in 2023. The gifts this year bring her total giving since 2019 to $26.3 billion.

    Scott’s donations have captured the attention of nonprofits and other charitable funders because they come with no strings attached and are often very large compared to the annual budgets of the recipient organizations. Forbes estimates Scott’s net worth at $33 billion, most of which comes from Amazon shares she received after her 2019 divorce from company founder Jeff Bezos..

    With the exception of an open call for applications in 2023, it is not possible to apply for her funding nor to reach her directly, as Scott maintains no public facing office or foundation. Organizations are usually notified through an intermediary that Scott is awarding them a donation with little prelude or warning.

    In advance of her announcement on her website, Yield Giving, more than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities revealed they had received $783 million in donations from Scott so far this year, according to research from Marybeth Gasman, a professor at Rutgers University and expert on HBCUs.

    “One of the things that I really admire about Mackenzie Scott is that she is like an equity machine,” Gasman said, especially at a time when efforts to promote equity in education have come under attack from the Trump administration. She also said Scott’s gifts to HBCUs this time are bigger than the round of donations she made in 2020.

    Not all of the schools that previously had received funding from Scott received a gift this time and there were some first-time recipients as well. In total, Gasman has tracked $1.35 billion in donations from Scott to HBCUs since 2020.

    In addition, UNCF, which is the largest provider of scholarships to minority students, received $70 million from Scott, and said it will invest the gift in a collective endowment it is building for participating HBCUs. Another $50 million went to Native Forward Scholars Fund, which had also received a previous gift from Scott and provides college and graduate scholarships to Native American students.

    Unlike Scott’s gifts, most foundations or major donors direct grants to specific programs and require an application and updates about the impact of the nonprofit’s work. Scott does not ask grantees to report back about how they used the money.

    Research from the Center for Effective Philanthropy in 2023 looked at the impact of Scott’s giving and found few of the recipients have struggled to manage the funds or have seen other funders pullback.

    Kim Mazzuca, the CEO of the California-based nonprofit, 10,000 Degrees, said her organization was notified of its first gift from Scott of $42 million earlier this year.

    “I was just filled with such joy. I was speechless and I kind of stumbled around with my words,” she said, and asked the person calling from Fidelity Charitable to clarify the donation amount, which is about double their annual budget.

    10,000 Degrees provides scholarships, mentoring and other support to low-income students and aims to help them graduate college without taking on loans. Mazzuca said that usually nonprofits grow only gradually, but that this gift will allow them to reach more students, to test some technology tools and to start an endowment.

    Mazzuca credited Scott for investing in proven solutions that already exist.

    “She comes from a very deep, reflective space, very heartfelt,” Mazzuca said. “And she’s only providing these financial means as a tool for people to recognize they are who they’ve been waiting for.”

    That idea references a prophecy from the Hopi Tribe that ends with the line, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Mazzuca said she’s drawn on the prophecy for years to empower both her organization and the students it supports to recognize their own power to shape our world.

    In October, Scott posted an essay on her website under that title and sharing the prophecy. The essay, which she expanded upon in December to announce her giving, also reflects on how acts of generosity and kindness can ripple far afield and into the future. She cited her own experiences getting help while in college, including a dentist who repaired a tooth for free and her roommate who loaned her $1,000.

    Scott now has invested in that same roommate’s company, which offers loans to students who would otherwise struggle to get financing from banks. The investments seem to be part of an effort Scott announced last year to move more of her money into “mission aligned” investments, rather than into vehicles that seek only the highest monetary returns.

    In her 2025 essay, Scott seemed to urge people toward action, writing, “There are many ways to influence how we move through the world, and where we land.”

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    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • What a federal ban on THC-infused drinks and snacks could mean for the hemp industry

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    MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The production lines at Indeed Brewing moved quickly, the cans filling not with beer, but with THC-infused seltzer. The product, which features the compound that gets cannabis users high, has been a lifeline at Indeed and other craft breweries as alcohol sales have fallen in recent years.

    But that boom looks set to come to a crashing halt. Buried in the bill that ended the federal government shutdown this month was a provision to ban those drinks, along with other impairing beverages and snacks made from hemp, which have proliferated across the country in recent years. Now the $24 billion hemp industry is scrambling to save itself before the provision takes effect in November 2026.

    “It’s a big deal,” said Ryan Bandy, Indeed’s chief business officer. “It would be a mess for our breweries, for our industry, and obviously for a lot of people who like these things.”

    Ryan Bandy, chief business officer at Indeed Brewing in Minneapolis, stands near a pallet of six-packs of seltzer containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his brewery on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

    Here’s what to know about the looming ban on impairing products derived from hemp.

    Congress opened the door in 2018

    Marijuana and hemp are the same species. Marijuana is cultivated for high levels of THC in its flowers. Low-THC hemp is grown for its sturdy fibers, food or wellness products. “Rope, not dope” was long the motto of farmers who supported legalizing hemp.

    After states began legalizing marijuana for adult use over a decade ago, hemp advocates saw an opening at the federal level. As part of the 2018 farm bill, Congress legalized the cultivation of industrial hemp to give farmers, including in Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, a new cash crop.

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    But the way that law defined hemp — as having less than 0.3% of a specific type of THC, called delta-9 — opened a huge loophole. Beverages or bags of snacks could meet that threshold and still contain more than enough THC to get people high. Businesses could further exploit the law by extracting a non-impairing compound, called CBD, and chemically changing it into other types of impairing THC, such as delta-8 or delta-10.

    The result? Vape oil, gummy candies, chips, cookies, sodas and other unregulated, untested products laden with hemp-derived THC spread around the country. In many places, they have been available at gas stations or convenience stores, even to teens. In legal marijuana states, they undercut heavily taxed and regulated products. In others, they evaded the prohibition on recreational use of weed.

    Some states, including Indiana, have reported spikes in calls to poison-control centers for pediatric exposure to THC.

    Cans of seltzer containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, are shown in a cooler at the Indeed Brewery taproom in Minneapolis on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

    Cans of seltzer containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, are shown in a cooler at the Indeed Brewery taproom in Minneapolis on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

    A patchwork of state regulations

    Dozens of states have since taken steps to regulate or ban impairing hemp products. In October, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill banning the sale of intoxicating hemp products outside the state’s legal marijuana system.

    Texas, which has a massive hemp market, is moving to regulate sales of impairing hemp, such as by restricting them to those over 21. In Nebraska, lawmakers have instead considered a bill to criminalize the sale and possession of products containing hemp-based THC.

    Washington state adopted a program to regulate hemp growing. But the number of licensed growers has cratered since the state banned intoxicating hemp products outside of the regulated cannabis market in 2023. Five years ago, there were 220, said Trecia Ehrlich, cannabis program manager with the state agriculture department. This year, there were 42, and with a federal ban looming, she expects that number to drop by about half next year.

    Minnesota made infused beverages and foods legal in 2022 for people 21 and older. The products, which must be derived from legally certified hemp, have become so popular that Target is now offering THC drinks at some of its stores in the state.

    They’ve also been a boon to liquor stores and to small Minneapolis brewers like Indeed, where THC drinks make up close to one-quarter of the business, Bandy said. At Bauhaus Brew Labs, a few blocks away, THC drinks account for 26% of their revenues from distributed products and 11% of revenues at the brewery’s taproom.

    A powerful senator moves to close the loophole

    None of that was what McConnell intended when he helped craft the 2018 farm bill. He finally closed the loophole by inserting a federal hemp THC ban in the measure to end the 43-day federal government shutdown, approved by the Senate on Nov. 10.

    “It will keep these dangerous products out of the hands of children, while preserving the hemp industry for farmers,” McConnell said. “Industrial hemp and CBD will remain legal for industrial applications.”

    Some in the legal marijuana industry celebrated, as the ban would end what they consider unfair competition.

    They were joined by prohibitionists. “There’s really no good argument for allowing these dangerous products to be sold in our country,” said Kevin Sabet, president and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

    But the ban doesn’t take effect for a year. That has given the industry hope that there is still time to pass regulations that will improve the hemp THC industry — such as by banning synthetically derived THC, requiring age restrictions on sales, and prohibiting marketing to children — rather than eradicate it.

    “We are very hopeful that cooler heads will prevail,” said Jonathan Miller, general counsel of the industry group U.S. Hemp Roundtable. “If they really thought there was a health emergency, there would be no year-long period.”

    The federal ban would jeopardize more than 300,000 jobs while costing states $1.5 billion in lost tax money, the group says.

    Drew Hurst, president and chief operating officer at Bauhaus Brew Labs, has no doubt his company would be among the casualties.

    “If this goes through as written currently, I don’t see a way at all that Bauhaus could stay in business,” Hurst said.

    Drew Hurst, president and chief operating officer of Bauhaus Brew Labs in Minneapolis, stands outside a cooler for cans of seltzer containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his brewery's taproom on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

    Drew Hurst, president and chief operating officer of Bauhaus Brew Labs in Minneapolis, stands outside a cooler for cans of seltzer containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his brewery’s taproom on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)

    What comes next?

    A number of lawmakers say they will push for regulation of the hemp THC industry. Kentucky’s second senator, Republican Rand Paul, introduced an amendment to strip McConnell’s hemp language from the crucial government-funding bill, but it failed on a lopsided 76-24 vote.

    Minnesota’s Democratic U.S. senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, are among those strategizing to save the industry. Klobuchar noted at a recent news conference that the ban was inserted into the unrelated shutdown bill without a hearing. She suggested the federal government could allow states to develop their own regulatory frameworks, or that Minnesota’s strict regulations could be used as a national model.

    Kevin Hilliard, co-founder of Insight Brewing in Minneapolis, said the hemp industry needs a solution before planting time next spring.

    “If a farmer has uncertainty, they’re not going to plant,” Hilliard said.

    ___

    Johnson reported from Seattle. AP congressional reporter Kevin Freking contributed from Washington, D.C.

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  • New limits for a rent algorithm that prosecutors say let landlords drive up prices

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    Landlords could no longer rely on rent-pricing software to quietly track each other’s moves and push rents higher using confidential data, under a settlement between RealPage Inc. and federal prosecutors to end what critics said was illegal “algorithmic collusion.”

    The deal announced Monday by the Department of Justice follows a yearlong federal antitrust lawsuit, launched during the Biden administration, against the Texas-based software company. RealPage would not have to pay any damages or admit any wrongdoing. The settlement must still be approved by a judge.

    RealPage software provides daily recommendations to help landlords and their employees nationwide price their available apartments. The landlords do not have to follow the suggestions, but critics argue that because the software has access to a vast trove of confidential data, it helps RealPage’s clients charge the highest possible rent.

    “RealPage was replacing competition with coordination, and renters paid the price,” said DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater, who emphasized that the settlement avoided a costly, time-consuming trial.

    Under the terms of the proposed settlement, RealPage can no longer use that real-time data to determine price recommendations. Instead, the only nonpublic data that can be used to train the software’s algorithm must be at least one year old.

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    “What does this mean for you and your family?” Slater said in a video statement. “It means more real competition in local housing markets. It means rents set by the market, not by a secret algorithm.”

    RealPage attorney Stephen Weissman said the company is pleased the DOJ worked with them to settle the matter.

    “There has been a great deal of misinformation about how RealPage’s software works and the value it provides for both housing providers and renters,” Weissman said in a statement. “We believe that RealPage’s historical use of aggregated and anonymized nonpublic data, which include rents that are typically lower than advertised rents, has led to lower rents, less vacancies, and more procompetitive effects.”

    However, the deal was slammed by some observers as a missed opportunity to clamp down on alleged algorithmic price-fixing throughout the economy.

    “This case really was the tip of the spear,” said Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, whose group advocates for government action against business concentration.

    He said the settlement is rife with loopholes and he believes RealPages can keep influencing the rental market even if they can only use public, rather than private, data. He also decried how RealPages does not have to pay any damages, unlike many companies that have paid millions in penalties over their use of the software.

    Over the past few months, more than two dozen property management companies have reached various settlements over their use of RealPage, including Greystar, the nation’s largest landlord, which agreed to pay $50 million to settle a class action lawsuit, and $7 million to settle a separate lawsuit filed by nine states.

    The governors of California and New York signed laws last month to crack down on rent-setting software, and a growing list of cities, including Philadelphia and Seattle, have passed ordinances against the practice.

    Ten states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington — had joined the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit. Those states were not part of Monday’s settlement, meaning they can continue to pursue the case in court.

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  • Cities and states are turning to AI to improve road safety

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    As America’s aging roads fall further behind on much-needed repairs, cities and states are turning to artificial intelligence to spot the worst hazards and decide which fixes should come first.

    Hawaii officials, for example, are giving away 1,000 dashboard cameras as they try to reverse a recent spike in traffic fatalities. The cameras will use AI to automate inspections of guardrails, road signs and pavement markings, instantly discerning between minor problems and emergencies that warrant sending a maintenance crew.

    “This is not something where it’s looked at once a month and then they sit down and figure out where they’re going to put their vans,” said Richard Browning, chief commercial officer at Nextbase, which developed the dashcams and imagery platform for Hawaii.

    After San Jose, California, started mounting cameras on street sweepers, city staff confirmed the system correctly identified potholes 97% of the time. Now they’re expanding the effort to parking enforcement vehicles.

    Texas, where there are more roadway lane miles than the next two states combined, is less than a year into a massive AI plan that uses cameras as well as cellphone data from drivers who enroll to improve safety.

    Other states use the technology to inspect street signs or build annual reports about road congestion.

    Every guardrail, every day

    Hawaii drivers over the next few weeks will be able to sign up for a free dashcam valued at $499 under the “Eyes on the Road” campaign, which was piloted on service vehicles in 2021 before being paused due to wildfires.

    Roger Chen, a University of Hawaii associate professor of engineering who is helping facilitate the program, said the state faces unique challenges in maintaining its outdated roadway infrastructure.

    “Equipment has to be shipped to the island,” Chen said. “There’s a space constraint and a topography constraint they have to deal with, so it’s not an easy problem.”

    Although the program also monitors such things as street debris and faded paint on lane lines, the companies behind the technology particularly tout its ability to detect damaged guardrails.

    “They’re analyzing all guardrails in their state, every single day,” said Mark Pittman, CEO of Blyncsy, which combines the dashboard feeds with mapping software to analyze road conditions.

    Hawaii transportation officials are well aware of the risks that can stem from broken guardrails. Last year, the state reached a $3.9 million settlement with the family of a driver who was killed in 2020 after slamming into a guardrail that had been damaged in a crash 18 months earlier but never repaired.

    In October, Hawaii recorded its 106th traffic fatality of 2025 — more than all of 2024. It’s unclear how many of the deaths were related to road problems, but Chen said the grim trend underscores the timeliness of the dashboard program.

    Building a larger AI database

    San Jose has reported strong early success in identifying potholes and road debris just by mounting cameras on a few street sweepers and parking enforcement vehicles.

    But Mayor Matt Mahan, a Democrat who founded two tech startups before entering politics, said the effort will be much more effective if cities contribute their images to a shared AI database. The system can recognize a road problem that it has seen before — even if it happened somewhere else, Mahan said.

    “It sees, ‘Oh, that actually is a cardboard box wedged between those two parked vehicles, and that counts as debris on a roadway,’” Mahan said. “We could wait five years for that to happen here, or maybe we have it at our fingertips.”

    San Jose officials helped establish the GovAI Coalition, which went public in March 2024 for governments to share best practices and eventually data. Other local governments in California, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas and Washington, as well as the state of Colorado, are members.

    Some solutions are simple

    Not all AI approaches to improving road safety require cameras.

    Massachusetts-based Cambridge Mobile Telematics launched a system called StreetVision that uses cellphone data to identify risky driving behavior. The company works with state transportation departments to pinpoint where specific road conditions are fueling those dangers.

    Ryan McMahon, the company’s senior vice president of strategy & corporate development, was attending a conference in Washington, D.C., when he noticed the StreetVision software was showing a massive number of vehicles braking aggressively on a nearby road.

    The reason: a bush was obstructing a stop sign, which drivers weren’t seeing until the last second.

    “What we’re looking at is the accumulation of events,” McMahon said. “That brought me to an infrastructure problem, and the solution to the infrastructure problem was a pair of garden shears.”

    Texas officials have been using StreetVision and various other AI tools to address safety concerns. The approach was particularly helpful recently when they scanned 250,000 lane miles (402,000 kilometers) to identify old street signs long overdue for replacement.

    “If something was installed 10 or 15 years ago and the work order was on paper, God help you trying to find that in the digits somewhere,” said Jim Markham, who deals with crash data for the Texas Department of Transportation. “Having AI that can go through and screen for that is a force multiplier that basically allows us to look wider and further much faster than we could just driving stuff around.”

    Autonomous vehicles are next

    Experts in AI-based road safety techniques say what’s being done now is largely just a stepping stone for a time when a large proportion of vehicles on the road will be driverless.

    Pittman, the Blyncsy CEO who has worked on the Hawaii dashcam program, predicts that within eight years almost every new vehicle — with or without a driver — will come with a camera.

    “How do we see our roadways today from the perspective of grandma in a Buick but also Elon and his Tesla?” Pittman said. “This is really important nuance for departments of transportation and city agencies. They’re now building infrastructure for humans and automated drivers alike, and they need to start bridging that divide.”

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  • Ohtani is unanimous MVP for 4th time in winning NL honor as Judge edges Raleigh for 3rd AL accolade

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    Shohei Ohtani likes winning Most Valuable Player awards. He loves winning the World Series even more.

    The two-way Japanese star did both for a second season in a row for the Los Angeles Dodgers, earning his fourth career MVP on Thursday night while unanimously earning the National League honor. He’s just the second to win four MVPs after Barry Bonds with seven and the only player to win unanimously more than once.

    Considering Ohtani is 31, overtaking Bonds doesn’t seem out of the question. Especially if it leads to more Fall Classic opportunities.

    “If I’m playing well as an individual that means I’m helping the team win, so in that sense, hopefully I can end up with a couple more MVPs,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “But at the end of the day, it’s all about winning games.”

    In the American League, Aaron Judge became the New York Yankees’ fourth three-time winner, edging Seattle’s Cal Raleigh with 17 first-place votes to 13 for the switch-hitting catcher. The vote was the closest for an MVP since the Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Trout topped Houston’s Alex Bregman by 17-13 in 2019.

    Judge, who won the AL award in 2022 and 2024, joined Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle as three-time MVPs with the Yankees. The 33-year-old outfielder led the majors with a .331 batting average and 1.144 OPS while hitting 53 homers.

    When asked about his place in MLB and Yankees lore, Judge acknowledged he’s in rare company.

    “It’s tough for me to wrap my head around,” Judge said. “It’s mind blowing from my side of things, because I play this game to win, I play this game for my teammates, my family, all the fans in New York.”

    Later he added: “You’ve got to pinch yourself every single day. It’s truly an incredible honor.”

    Ohtani won a MVP for the third straight year, his second in the NL with the Dodgers after two in the AL with the Angels. He became the first to win in each league twice after getting the AL honor in 2021 and 2023. Ohtani signed with the crosstown Dodgers the following offseason and won NL MVP in 2024 during his first season in Chavez Ravine. He’s also won the World Series in both his seasons with the Dodgers.

    Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber finished second in the NL with 23 second-place votes and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto was third with four.

    Ohtani hit .282 and led the NL with a 1.014 OPS. He also had 55 homers, 102 RBIs and 20 stolen bases.

    The right-hander returned to pitching in June after missing 1 1/2 seasons on the mound because of an elbow injury. He struck out 62 batters over 47 innings, slowly increasing his workload while preparing for the postseason.

    Ohtani continued to shine in October with arguably the greatest single game in MLB history. He hit three homers while striking out 10 over six dominant innings on Oct. 17, leading the Dodgers over Milwaukee to finish an NL Championship Series sweep.

    Schwarber, who earned a $50,000 bonus for finishing second, hit an NL-best 56 homers and led the big leagues with 132 RBIs for Philadelphia.

    Soto overcame a slow start to the season to have his typically stellar offensive output. The four-time All-Star — who signed a $765 million, 15-year deal last December — had 43 homers, 105 RBIs and an NL-best 38 stolen bases. He received a $150,000 bonus for finishing third in the MVP voting.

    Judge is the first AL player to win back-to-back MVPs since Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera it in 2012 and 2013.

    Raleigh, nicknamed “Big Dumper,” led the big leagues with 60 homers, the most for a player primarily a catcher. He started 119 games behind the plate and another 38 at designated hitter.

    The 28-year-old also had a career-high 125 RBIs, leading the Mariners to one of their best seasons in franchise history. Judge said he got to know Raleigh a little during the All-Star break and the catcher asked for some leadership tips.

    “Cal’s a special player,” Judge said. “I could sit here and talk all night about the player he is, but really the kind of leader and person he is really stuck out to me at the All-Star Game.”

    Cleveland’s José Ramírez finished third in the AL.

    Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo was fourth in the NL voting, earning him $2.5 million annual salary increases in 2028 and 2029 along with the price of Arizona’s 2030 club option.

    ___

    AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

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  • Starbucks workers kick off 65-store US strike on company’s busy Red Cup Day

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    More than 1,000 unionized Starbucks workers went on strike at 65 U.S. stores Thursday to protest a lack of progress in labor negotiations with the company.

    The strike was intended to disrupt Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, which is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year. Since 2018, Starbucks has given out free, reusable cups on that day to customers who buy a holiday drink. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, said Thursday morning that the strike had already closed some stores and was expected to force more to close later in the day.

    Starbucks Workers United said stores in 45 cities would be impacted, including New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Diego, St. Louis, Dallas, Columbus, Ohio, and Starbucks’ home city of Seattle. There is no date set for the strike to end, and more stores are prepared to join if Starbucks doesn’t reach a contract agreement with the union, organizers said.

    Starbucks emphasized that the vast majority of its U.S. stores would be open and operating as usual Thursday. The coffee giant has 10,000 company-owned stores in the U.S., as well as 7,000 licensed locations in places like grocery stores and airports.

    As of noon Thursday on the East Coast, Starbucks said it was on track to meet or exceed its sales expectations for the day at its company-owned stores.

    “The day is off to an incredible start,” the company said in a statement.

    Around 550 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores are currently unionized. More have voted to unionize, but Starbucks closed 59 unionized stores in September as part of a larger reorganization campaign.

    Here’s what’s behind the strike.

    A stalled contract agreement

    Striking workers say they’re protesting because Starbucks has yet to reach a contract agreement with the union. Starbucks workers first voted to unionize at a store in Buffalo in 2021. In December 2023, Starbucks vowed to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. But in August of last year, the company ousted Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO who made that promise. The union said progress has stalled under Brian Niccol, the company’s current chairman and CEO. The two sides haven’t been at the bargaining table since April.

    Workers want higher pay, better hours

    Workers say they’re seeking better hours and improved staffing in stores, where they say long customer wait times are routine. They also want higher pay, pointing out that executives like Niccol are making millions and the company spent $81 million in June on a conference in Las Vegas for 14,000 store managers and regional leaders.

    Dochi Spoltore, a barista from Pittsburgh, said in a union conference call Thursday that it’s hard for workers to be assigned more than 19 hours per week, which leaves them short of the 20 hours they would need to be eligible for Starbucks’ benefits. Spoltore said she makes $16 per hour.

    “I want Starbucks to succeed. My livelihood depends on it,” Spoltore said. “We’re proud of our work, but we’re tired of being treated like we’re disposable.”

    The union also wants the company to resolve hundreds of unfair labor practice charges filed by workers, who say the company has fired baristas in retaliation for unionizing and has failed to bargain over changes in policy that workers must enforce, like its decision earlier this year to limit restroom use to paying customers.

    Starbucks stands by its wages and benefits

    Starbucks says it offers the best wage and benefit package in retail, worth an average of $30 per hour. Among the company’s benefits are up to 18 weeks of paid family leave and 100% tuition coverage for a four-year college degree. In a letter to employees last week, Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the union walked away from the bargaining table in the spring.

    Kelly said some of the union’s proposals would significantly alter Starbucks’ operations, such as giving workers the ability to shut down mobile ordering if a store has more than five orders in the queue.

    Kelly said Starbucks remained ready to talk and “believes we can move quickly to a reasonable deal.” Kelly also said surveys showed that most employees like working for the company, and its barista turnover rates are half the industry average.

    Limited locations with high visibility

    Unionized workers have gone on strike at Starbucks before. In 2022 and 2023, workers walked off the job on Red Cup Day. Last year, a five-day strike ahead of Christmas closed 59 U.S. stores. Each time, Starbucks said the disruption to its operations was minimal. Starbucks Workers United said the new strike is open-ended and could spread to many more unionized locations.

    The number of non-union Starbucks locations dwarfs the number of unionized ones. But Todd Vachon, a union expert at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said any strike could be highly visible and educate the public on baristas’ concerns.

    Unlike manufacturers, Vachon said, retail industries depend on the connection between their employees and their customers. That makes shaming a potentially powerful weapon in the union’s arsenal, he said.

    Improving sales

    Starbucks’ same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, rose 1% in the July-September period. It was the first time in nearly two years that the company had posted an increase. In his first year at the company, Niccol set new hospitality standards, redesigned stores to be cozier and more welcoming, and adjusted staffing levels to better handle peak hours.

    Starbucks also is trying to prioritize in-store orders over mobile ones. Last week, the company’s holiday drink rollout in the U.S. was so successful that it almost immediately sold out of its glass Bearista cup. Starbucks said demand for the cup exceeded its expectations, but it wouldn’t say if the Bearista will return before the holidays are over.

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  • Jayden Daniels leaves game after Washington QB’s nonthrowing arm bends gruesomely

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Jayden Daniels was being dragged down by a defender when he stuck his left arm out and put his hand on the ground.

    That’s when a dismal night for the Washington Commanders turned downright horrifying.

    Daniels’ nonthrowing arm bent gruesomely, and the star quarterback had to leave Washington’s 38-14 loss to Seattle on Sunday night with 7:29 remaining in the fourth quarter. It’s the third — and perhaps the most significant — injury of the season for Daniels, who was in his first game back from a hamstring issue.

    “It’s really tough to see him go down. You just want him to stay positive,” Commanders linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “You don’t know what the result is. You just speak a lot of positivity into existence. He’s a very positive person so we’re just praying for the best.”

    AP AUDIO: Jayden Daniels leaves game after Washington QB’s nonthrowing arm bends gruesomely

    The NFL’s reigning Offensive Rookie of the Year exited with a significant injury late during a lopsided defeat. Correspondent Gethin Coolbaugh reports.

    Commanders coach Dan Quinn said Daniels injured his elbow. That was about the extent of the postgame update. Quinn didn’t have much of an explanation for why Daniels was still in the game. Washington was trailing 38-7 at the time.

    “Obviously like the hindsight, you don’t want to think that way, where an injury could take place,” Quinn said. “Obviously we’re more conservative in that spot to run and hand off and not have reads to go, but just the end result — obviously, I’m bummed.”

    In addition to the hamstring injury, Daniels also missed two games earlier this season with knee issues.

    Although an injury to Daniels’ non-throwing arm isn’t necessarily career altering, Commanders fans could hardly be blamed for immediately fearing the worst. It was on this same field about 13 years ago — against the same opponent — that Robert Griffin III went down with a severe knee injury at the end of his sensational rookie season for Washington. He never reached those heights again.

    The Commanders fell behind early Sunday and trailed 31-7 at halftime, and Daniels had to do plenty of scrambling. He ended up running for 51 yards on 10 carries, and the injury underscored the risk in doing that.

    “I think that’s his nature. He wants to be aggressive and make plays,” Quinn said. “He’s got confidence in the other players. I do know that. So it’s not like, ‘I have to do more, I have to do things that are outside of playing in that way.’ We also have to have everybody. Injuries happen and you hate it.”

    As a rookie last season, Daniels led Washington to the NFC championship game — its best season since 1991. Now the Commanders are 3-6 after four straight losses. If the season can be salvaged, it may have to be with Marcus Mariota at quarterback.

    During those moments when Daniels was slow to get up, however, it was the long-term future that seemed like the bigger issue.

    “I didn’t see what happened exactly. I just heard a pause and I kind of put my head down and prayed for him,” Commanders guard Sam Cosmi said. “You just don’t want to see that happen.”

    ___

    AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

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  • OpenAI and Amazon sign $38 billion deal for AI computing power

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    SEATTLE (AP) — OpenAI and Amazon have signed a $38 billion deal that enables the ChatGPT maker to run its artificial intelligence systems on Amazon’s data centers in the U.S.

    OpenAI will be able to power its AI tools using “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia’s specialized AI chips through Amazon Web Services as part of the deal announced Monday.

    Amazon shares increased 4% after the announcement.

    The agreement comes less than a week after OpenAI altered its partnership with its longtime backer Microsoft, which until early this year was the startup’s exclusive cloud computing provider.

    California and Delaware regulators also last week allowed San Francisco-based OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit, to move forward on its plan to form a new business structure to more easily raise capital and make a profit.

    “The rapid advancement of AI technology has created unprecedented demand for computing power,” Amazon said in a statement Monday. It said OpenAI “will immediately start utilizing AWS compute as part of this partnership, with all capacity targeted to be deployed before the end of 2026, and the ability to expand further into 2027 and beyond.”

    AI requires huge amounts of energy and computing power and OpenAI has long signaled that it needs more capacity, both to develop new AI systems and keep existing products like ChatGPT answering the questions of its hundreds of millions of users. It’s recently made more than $1 trillion worth of financial obligations in spending for AI infrastructure, including data center projects with Oracle and SoftBank and semiconductor supply deals with chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom.

    Some of the deals have raised investor concerns about their “circular” nature, since OpenAI doesn’t make a profit and can’t yet afford to pay for the infrastructure that its cloud backers are providing on the expectations of future returns on their investments. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week dismissed doubters he says have aired “breathless concern” about the deals.

    “Revenue is growing steeply. We are taking a forward bet that it’s going to continue to grow,” Altman said on a podcast where he appeared with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

    Amazon is already the primary cloud provider to AI startup Anthropic, an OpenAI rival that makes the Claude chatbot.

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  • Amazon cuts 14,000 corporate jobs as spending on artificial intelligence accelerates

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    Amazon will cut about 14,000 corporate jobs as the online retail giant ramps up spending on artificial intelligence while cutting costs elsewhere.

    Teams and individuals impacted by the job cuts will be notified on Tuesday. Most workers will be given 90 days to look for a new position internally, Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, wrote in a letter to employees on Tuesday. Those who can’t find a new role at the company or who opt not to look for one will be provided transitional support including severance pay, outplacement services and health insurance benefits.

    Amazon has about 350,000 corporate employees and a total workforce of approximately 1.56 million. The cuts announced Tuesday amount to about a 4% reduction in its corporate workforce.

    In June CEO Andy Jassy, who has aggressively sought to cut costs since becoming CEO in 2021, said that he anticipated generative AI would reduce Amazon’s corporate workforce in the next few years.

    Jassy said at the time that Amazon had more than 1,000 generative AI services and applications in progress or built, but that figure was a “small fraction” of what it plans to build.

    Amazon has announced plans to invest $10 billion building a campus in North Carolina to expand its cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

    Since 2024 started, Amazon has committed to about $10 billion apiece to data center projects in Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina as it builds up its infrastructure to try to keep up with other tech giants making leaps in AI. Amazon is competing with OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta and others. In a conference call with industry analysts in May, Jassy said that the potential for growth in the company’s AWS business is massive.

    “If you believe your mission is to make customers’ lives easier and better every day, and you believe that every customer experience will be reinvented with AI, you’re going to invest very aggressively in AI, and that’s what we’re doing. You can see that in the 1,000-plus AI applications we’re building across Amazon. You can see that with our next generation of Alexa, named Alexa+,” he said.

    Amazon’s workforce doubled during the pandemic as millions stayed home and boosted online spending. In the following years, big tech and retail companies cut thousands of jobs to bring spending back in line.

    The cuts announced Tuesday suggests Amazon is still trying to get the size of its workforce right and it may not be over. It was the biggest culling at Amazon since 2023, when the company cut 27,000 jobs. Those cuts came in waves, with 9,000 jobs trimmed in March of that year, and another 18,000 employees two months later. Amazon has not said if more job cuts are on the way.

    Yet the jobs market which has for years been a pillar in the U.S. economy, is showing signs of weakening. Layoffs have been limited, but the same can be said for hiring.

    Government hiring data is on hold during the government shut down, but earlier this month a survey by payroll company ADP showed a surprising loss of 32,000 jobs losses in the private sector in September.

    Many retailers are pulling back on seasonal hiring this year due to uncertainty over the U.S. economy and tariffs. Amazon Inc. said this month, however, that it would hire 250,000 seasonal workers, the same as last year’s holiday season.

    Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said in a statement that the layoffs “represent a deep cleaning of Amazon’s corporate workforce.”

    “Unlike the Target layoffs, Amazon is operating from a position of strength,” he said. “The company has been producing good growth, and it still has a lot of headroom for further expansion in both the U.S. and overseas.”

    But Saunders noted that Amazon is not immune to outside factors, as global markets tighten and underlying costs climb.

    “It needs to act if it wants to continue with a good bottom-line performance. This is especially so given the amount of investment the company is making in areas like logistics and AI. In some ways, this is a tipping point away from human capital to technological infrastructure,” he said.

    Amazon will post quarterly financial results on Thursday. During its most recent quarter, the company reported 17.5% growth for its cloud computing arm Amazon Web Services.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Trump paints a grim portrait of Portland. The story on the ground is much less extreme

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    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Donald Trump, members of his administration and conservative influencers painted a bleak portrait of Portland, Oregon, at a roundtable event at the White House Wednesday, alleging that the city has been besieged by violence perpetrated by “antifa thugs” and that it is essentially a war zone.

    “It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country, radicals associated with the domestic terror group antifa that you’ve heard a lot about lately,” Trump said.

    But the reality on the ground in Portland is far from the extremes described at the White House.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    The protests

    TRUMP: “In Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our offices and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law.”

    THE FACTS: There have been nightly protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland for months, peaking in June when police declared one demonstration a riot. There have also been smaller clashes since then: On Labor Day, some demonstrators brought a prop guillotine — a display the U.S. Department of Homeland Security blasted as “unhinged behavior.”

    The protests at the ICE facility, which is outside downtown, have largely been confined to one city block and have attracted a range of participants. During the day, a handful of immigration and legal advocates mill about and offer copies of “know your rights” flyers. Daytime marches to the building have also included older people and families with young children. At night, other protesters arrive, often using megaphones to shout obscenities at law enforcement.

    While the administration claims protesters are antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for decentralized far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

    The building was closed for three weeks from mid-June to early July because of damage to windows, security cameras, gates and other parts of the facility, federal officials said in court filings submitted in response to a lawsuit brought by Portland and Oregon seeking to block the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard. The building’s main entrance and ground-floor windows have been boarded up.

    Protesters have also sought to block vehicles from entering and leaving the facility. Federal officials argue that this has impeded law enforcement operations and forced more personnel and resources to be sent from other parts of the country.

    However, in the weeks leading up to the Trump administration’s move to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard on Sept. 28, most nights drew a couple dozen people, Portland police correspondence submitted to the court shows.

    Protests began growing again after the National Guard was ordered to Portland over the objections of local and state officials.

    Since June, Portland police have arrested at least 45 people, with the majority of those arrests taking place in June. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have charged at least 31 people with crimes committed at the building, including assaulting federal officers; 22 of those defendants had been charged by early July.

    Is Portland on fire?

    TRUMP: “The amazing thing is, you look at Portland and you see fires all over the place. You see fights, and I mean just violence. It’s just so crazy. And then you talk to the governor and she acts like everything is totally normal, there’s nothing wrong.”

    THE FACTS: Fires outside the building have been seen on a handful of occasions. In June, a man was arrested after he lit a flare and tossed it onto a pile of materials stacked against the vehicle gate, according to federal prosecutors, who said the fire was fully extinguished within minutes.

    More recently, social media videos of the Labor Day protest showed a small fire lit on the prop guillotine. And in early October, following the announcement of the National Guard’s mobilization, videos on social media showed a protester holding an American flag on fire — and conservative influencer Nick Sortor stomping the fire out.

    There have also been some high-profile confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters. In late September, conservative media figure Katie Daviscourt was hit in the face with a flagpole and suffered a laceration, police logs show. In early October, Sortor, who has more than 1 million followers on X, was arrested along with two other protesters following an altercation. Local prosecutors ultimately declined to charge him after finding that one of the protesters had pushed him and that “any physical contact he had with other persons was defensive in nature.”

    While Portland police correspondence submitted to the court notes a few instances of “active” energy and disturbances between protesters and counterprotesters, many entries describe low energy and “no issues” in the weeks leading up to the National Guard’s mobilization.

    A new tongue-in-cheek website has also launched in recent days: isportlandburning.com shows multiple live cameras in the city and near-real-time data from the city’s fire department.

    Shops and sewers

    TRUMP: “I don’t know what could be worse than Portland. You don’t even have sewers anymore. They don’t even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows. But most of the retailers have left.”

    THE FACTS: This is false. Portland does have sewers — its sewer and stormwater system “includes more than 2,500 miles of pipes, nearly 100 pump stations, and two treatment plants,” according to the city’s website. The largest sewer pipe is the East Side Big Pipe, which has an inside diameter of 22 feet, while the smallest are only six inches in diameter.

    Local and state officials have suggested that many of Trump’s claims appear to rely on images from 2020. Portland famously erupted in more than 100 days of large-scale unrest and violent protests after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police that year. Police were unable to keep ahead of splinter groups of black-clad protesters who broke off and roamed the downtown area, at times breaking windows, spraying graffiti and setting small fires.

    But Portland has largely recovered from that time. Under a new mayor and police chief, the city has reduced crime, and the downtown — which has more than 600 retail shops, many with glass storefronts — has seen a decrease in homeless encampments and increased foot traffic. This summer was reportedly the busiest for pedestrian traffic since before the coronavirus pandemic, and a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.

    Gov. Tina Kotek said she told Trump during a phone call that “we have to be careful not to respond to outdated media coverage or misinformation that is out there.”

    Accusation of a cover-up

    KRISTI NOEM, Homeland Security Secretary: “I was in Portland yesterday and had the chance to visit with the governor of Oregon, and also the mayor there in town, and they are absolutely covering up the terrorism that is hitting their streets.”

    THE FACTS: Noem did visit Portland on Tuesday and met with Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson. Both officials disagree with Noem’s narrative.

    Kotek has repeatedly said that “there is no insurrection in Portland,” including in conversations with Trump and Noem, and that the city does not need “military intervention.” She has also continually called for any protests to be peaceful and said that local law enforcement can “meet the moment.” After Trump threatened to send the National Guard to Portland, Wilson said in a statement that the city has protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction.”

    Observations on the ground in Portland support Kotek’s statement. While the nightly protests at the ICE facility have been disruptive for nearby residents — a charter school relocated this summer to get away from crowd-control devices — life has continued as normal in the rest of the city. There is no evidence of the protests in other areas of the city, including the downtown area about two miles away.

    Portland residents have taken to social media to push back against the Trump administration’s statements about their city with the hashtag #WarRavagedPortland, posting photos and videos that show protesters in inflatable unicorn and frog costumes, along with people walking their dogs, riding their bikes and shopping at farmers markets.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • Microsoft employee protests lead to 18 arrests as company reviews its work with Israel’s military

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    Police officers arrested 18 people at worker-led protests at Microsoft headquarters Wednesday as the tech company promises an “urgent” review of the Israeli military’s use of its technology during the ongoing war in Gaza.

    Two consecutive days of protest at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington called for the tech giant to immediately cut its business ties with Israel.

    But unlike Tuesday, when about 35 protesters occupying a plaza between office buildings left after Microsoft asked them to leave, the protesters on Wednesday “resisted and became aggressive” after the company told police they were trespassing, according to the Redmond Police Department.

    The protesters also splattered red paint resembling the color of blood over a landmark sign that bears the company logo and spells Microsoft in big gray letters.

    “We said, ‘Please leave or you will be arrested,’ and they chose not to leave so they were detained,” said police spokesperson Jill Green.

    Microsoft late last week said it was tapping a law firm to investigate allegations reported by British newspaper The Guardian that the Israeli Defense Forces used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

    “Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit this type of usage,” the company said in a statement posted Friday, adding that the report raises “precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review.”

    In February, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about the tech giant’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with military use of commercial artificial intelligence products skyrocketing by nearly 200 times after the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The AP reported that the Israeli military uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance, which can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI-enabled targeting systems.

    Following The AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged the military applications but said a review it commissioned found no evidence that its Azure platform and artificial intelligence technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share a copy of that review or say who conducted it.

    Microsoft said it will share the latest review’s findings after it’s completed by law firm Covington & Burling.

    The promise of a second review was insufficient for the employee-led No Azure for Apartheid group, which for months has protested Microsoft’s supplying the Israeli military with technology used for its war against Hamas in Gaza. The group said Wednesday the technology is “being used to surveil, starve and kill Palestinians.”

    Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest the contracts, and in April, fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.

    On Tuesday, the protesters posted online a call for what they called a “worker intifada,” using language evoking the Palestinian uprisings against Israeli military occupation that began in 1987.

    On Wednesday, the police department said it took 18 people into custody “for multiple charges, including trespassing, malicious mischief, resisting arrest, and obstruction.” It wasn’t clear how many were Microsoft employees. No injuries were reported.

    Microsoft said in a statement after the arrests that it “will continue to do the hard work needed to uphold its human rights standards in the Middle East, while supporting and taking clear steps to address unlawful actions that damage property, disrupt business or that threaten and harm others.”

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  • Pentagon audit says Boeing cleaned up on Air Force parts, including soap dispensers marked up 8,000%

    Pentagon audit says Boeing cleaned up on Air Force parts, including soap dispensers marked up 8,000%

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Boeing overcharged the Air Force nearly $1 million for spare parts on C-17 cargo planes, including an 8,000% markup for simple lavatory soap dispensers, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general.

    The Defense Department’s auditor reviewed prices paid for 46 spare parts on the C-17 from 2018 to 2022 and found that 12 were overpriced and nine seemed reasonably priced. It couldn’t determine the fairness of prices on the other 25 items.

    The Office of the Inspector General said it reviewed the soap dispenser prices after getting a hotline tip.

    Boeing disputed the findings.

    “We are reviewing the report, which appears to be based on an inapt comparison of the prices paid for parts that meet aircraft and contract specifications and designs versus basic commercial items that would not be qualified or approved for use on the C-17,” Boeing said in a statement. “We will continue to work with the OIG and the U.S. Air Force to provide a detailed written response to the report in the coming days.”

    The C-17 Globemaster is one of the military’s largest cargo aircraft. It can carry multiple military vehicles, large pallets of humanitarian supplies or, in extreme circumstances, hundreds of people. The Air Force flew C-17s nonstop for two weeks during the hectic August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, evacuating more than 120,000 civilians fleeing the Taliban.

    Since 2011, the U.S. government has awarded Boeing more than $30 billion in contracts to purchase needed spare parts for the C-17 and be reimbursed by the Air Force.

    Boeing is still trying to recover from financial and reputational damage caused by two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 of its bestselling airline jet, the 737 Max.

    This has been a particularly volatile year for the aerospace giant. It came under renewed scrutiny and federal investigations after a door plug flew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. Federal regulators limited Boeing production of the plane.

    In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to defraud the government for misleading regulators who approved pilot training rules for the Max. That plea deal is pending before a federal judge in Texas.

    Boeing is on its third chief executive in five years, having hired an outsider who joined the company in August. Last week, Boeing reported a third-quarter loss of more than $6 billion because of charges for several commercial, defense and space programs.

    A strike by 33,000 union machinists is now seven weeks old and has crippled production of 737s, 777s and 767 freighters, cutting off much-need cash. New CEO Kelly Ortberg has announced roughly 17,000 layoffs, and the company will issue new stock to raise up to $19 billion to shore up its debt-laden balance sheet.

    ___

    Koenig reported from Dallas.

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  • Close call at Nashville airport came after planes were directed to same runway, probe shows

    Close call at Nashville airport came after planes were directed to same runway, probe shows

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Investigators said Wednesday that air traffic controllers cleared an Alaska Airlines jet to take off from Nashville last month after telling pilots of a Southwest Airlines jet to cross the same runway.

    Pilots of the Alaska plane aborted their Sept. 12 takeoff at Nashville International Airport, applying the brakes so hard that the tires deflated as they are designed to do when they get too hot.

    The National Transportation Safety Board gave a timeline of the incident as part of a brief preliminary report. The agency said it is continuing to investigate the incident. The board usually issues a probable cause for accidents and close calls after lengthy reviews.

    There were 176 passengers and crew members on the Alaska jet and 141 on the Southwest plane. No injuries were reported, according to the NTSB.

    The agency said it listened to conversations between pilots and controllers and retrieved flight data recorders from both planes. Investigators got the cockpit voice recorder from the Alaska Airlines jet, but the recorder on the Southwest plane was overwritten after the plane took off.

    The NTSB said that a controller told the Alaska crew to line up on runway 13 and wait for permission to take off. About a minute later, a controller told the Southwest pilots to cross runway 13 on their way to another runway, and 15 seconds after that, a controller cleared the Alaska plane for takeoff.

    The Alaska plane started down the runway before the pilots cut short their takeoff. Fuse plugs deflated on all four tires on the main landing gear, the NTSB said.

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  • LinkedIn hit with 310 million euro fine for data privacy violations from Irish watchdog

    LinkedIn hit with 310 million euro fine for data privacy violations from Irish watchdog

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    LONDON (AP) — European Union regulators slapped LinkedIn on Thursday with a 310 million euro ($335 million) fine for violations of the bloc’s stringent data privacy rules.

    Ireland’s Data Protection Commission reprimanded the Microsoft-owned professional social networking site over concerns about the “lawfulness, fairness and transparency” of its personal data processing for advertising purposes.

    The Dublin-based watchdog is LinkedIn’s lead privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because that’s where the company’s European headquarters is based.

    The watchdog said it carried out an investigation that found LinkedIn did not have a lawful basis to gather data so it could target users with online ads, which is a breach of the privacy rules known as General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. It ordered LinkedIn to comply with the rules.

    Processing personal data “without an appropriate legal basis is a clear and serious violation” of the right to data protection in the EU, Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement.

    LinkedIn said it that while it believes it has been “in compliance” with the rules, it’s working to ensure its “ad practices” meet the requirements.

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  • Election officials are fighting a tsunami of voting conspiracy theories

    Election officials are fighting a tsunami of voting conspiracy theories

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    ATLANTA (AP) — Voting machines reversing votes. More voters registered than people eligible. Large numbers of noncitizens voting.

    With less than two weeks before Election Day, a resurgence in conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting is forcing state and local election officials to spend their time debunking rumors and explaining how elections are run at the same time they’re overseeing early voting and preparing for Nov. 5.

    “Truth is boring, facts are boring, and outrage is really interesting,” says Utah’s Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees elections in her state. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole with truth. But what we try to do is just get as much information out there as possible.”

    This year’s election is the first presidential contest since former President Donald Trump began spreading lies about widespread voter fraud costing him reelection in 2020. The false claims, which he continues to repeat, have undermined public confidence in elections and in the people who oversee them among a broad swath of Republican voters . Investigations have found no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines four years ago, and each of the battlegrounds states where Trump disputed his loss has affirmed Democrat J oe Biden’s win.

    In the past week, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed a voting machine had changed a voter’s ballot in her Georgia district during early voting, and Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X, has promoted various conspiracy theories about voting machines and voter fraud both online and at a rally for Trump in Pennsylvania.

    The floodgates are “very much” open, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who now leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that works with state and local election officials.

    “This is making election officials’ lives much more difficult,” he said.

    Eric Olsen, who oversees elections in Prince William County, Virginia, said combatting misinformation has become an important and challenging part of the job.

    “It’s really difficult from our position, a lot of times, because social media feels like a giant wave coming at you and we’re in a little canoe with a paddle,” he said. “But we have to do that work.”

    On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly attempted to sow doubt about the upcoming election – something he did ahead of his two previous bids for the White House. Even after he won in 2016, he claimed he had lost the popular vote because of a flood of illegal votes and he formed a presidential advisory commission to investigate. The commission disbanded without finding any widespread fraud.

    This year, Trump claims that Democrats will cheat again and uses “Too Big to Rig” as a rallying cry to encourage his supporters to vote. Election experts see it as laying the groundwork to again challenge the election should he lose.

    Spreading bogus accusations about elections has other consequences. It’s already led to a wave of harassment, threats and turnover of election workers as well as the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    The conspiracy theories that have surfaced in recent weeks are not new. There have long been claims of “vote flipping,” with the most recent ones surfacing in Georgia and Tennessee.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    A claim in Georgia’s Whitfield County was highlighted by Greene on Alex Jones’ “InfoWars” show. Jones has a history of spreading falsehoods and was ordered to pay $1.5 billion for his false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a hoax.

    County election officials issued a statement, noting the case involved one voter out of 6,000 ballots that had been cast since early voting began. The ballot was spoiled, and the voter cast a replacement that was counted. Officials said there was no problem with the voting machine.

    Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said every report they’ve seen so far of someone saying their printed ballot didn’t reflect their selections on the touchscreen voting machine has been a result of voter error.

    “There is zero evidence of a machine flipping an individual’s vote,” he said. “Are there elderly people whose hands shake and they probably hit the wrong button slightly and they didn’t review their ballot properly before they printed it? That’s the main situation we have seen. There is literally zero — and I’m saying this to certain congresspeople in this state — zero evidence of machines flipping votes. That claim was a lie in 2020 and it’s a lie now.”

    In Shelby County, Tennessee, county election officials said human error was to blame for reports of votes being changed. Voters had been using their fingers instead of a stylus to mark their selections on voting machines, officials said.

    In Washington state, Republican Jerrod Sessler, who is running for the state’s 4th Congressional District seat, shared a video on social media this week that claimed to show how easily fraudulent ballots can be created. But the video did not make clear that voter information on each ballot is checked against the state’s voter list.

    “A ballot returned using fake voter registration information would not be counted and is illegal in Washington state,” Charlie Boisner, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office, said in an email.

    Musk recently invoked Dominion Voting Systems as part of his remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania, seeming to suggest its equipment was not trustworthy. Dominion has been at the center of conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election and settled its defamation lawsuit against Fox News last year for $787 million over false claims aired repeatedly on the network. The judge in the case said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations made by Trump allies on the network were true.

    In a statement, Dominion said it was “closely monitoring claims around the Nov. 2024 election” and was “fully prepared to defend our company & our customers against lies and those who spread them.”

    A request for comment from Musk was not immediately returned.

    Musk, who has endorsed Trump, has repeatedly pushed misinformation about voter fraud to his 200 million followers on the X platform, where false information spreads largely unchecked.

    He has often sparred online with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Recently, the two tangled over Musk’s claim that there were more registered voters in Michigan, a presidential battleground state, than people eligible to vote. Benson said Musk was including in his count inactive voters who are scheduled for removal. A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee claiming problems with the state’s voter list.

    During an interview last month, Benson said she was disheartened to see someone in Musk’s position repeating false information.

    “If he was sincerely committed, as he says he is, to ensuring people have access to information, then I would hope that he would amplify the truthful information — the factual, accurate information — about the security of our elections instead of just amplifying conspiracy theories and in a way that directs the ire of many of his followers onto us as individual election administrators,” Benson said. “It’s something that we didn’t have to deal with in 2020 that creates a new battlefront and challenge for us.”

    ___

    Fernando reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Amazon says new technology in delivery vans will help sort packages on the fly and save time

    Amazon says new technology in delivery vans will help sort packages on the fly and save time

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    Amazon has revealed new technology that it says will help delivery drivers avoid organizing packages at stops or manually check to see if they have the right parcel for each delivery.

    The technology – called Vision-Assisted Package Retrieval, or VAPR – is intended to cut down on the time and effort it takes drivers to retrieve packages, Amazon’s retail chief Doug Herrington said at a company event in Nashville on Wednesday.

    Amazon expects to put 1,000 delivery vans that contain the technology on the road by early next year.

    The company says VAPR essentially works like this: Once an Amazon delivery van arrives at a customer’s location, it will project a green “0” on packages that need to be dropped off, and a red “X” on those that should remain in the van.

    The technology will also use audio and visual cues to let drivers know they have found the right package, Amazon said.

    The Seattle company has been testing the new feature with its Delivery Service Partners, the businesses that deliver packages across the country for Amazon.

    It said early tests have showed the technology helped reduce “perceived physical and mental effort” for drivers and saved them more than 30 minutes per route.

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  • Kerolin scores after returning from ACL tear, NC Courage take down Chicago Red Stars 3-1

    Kerolin scores after returning from ACL tear, NC Courage take down Chicago Red Stars 3-1

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    Kerolin scored her first goal since returning from an ACL injury, helping the North Carolina Courage beat the Chicago Red Stars 3-1 on Sunday night.

    It was just the second game back for Kerolin, who was named MVP of the 2023 National Women’s Soccer League season.

    In the 15th minute at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Illinois, the Courage (11-9-2) jumped into the lead when Ashley Sanchez crossed to Brianna Pinto, who forced an own goal while battling for the ball. Pinto was injured on the play and had to sub out a few minutes later.

    Just before halftime, Tyler Lussi passed back to Denise O’Sullivan at the top of the 18-yard box, and O’Sullivan fired a shot into the upper right corner with her first touch to double North Carolina’s lead.

    Kerolin got on Olivia Wingate’s cutback pass to make it 3-0 in the 65th.

    Ludmilla responded for Chicago (9-11-2) a few minutes later, scoring from a tight angle.

    The Courage finish the weekend in fifth place while the Red Stars hold onto sixth.

    U.S. women’s national team coach Emma Hayes attended the match.

    BAY 1, REIGN 0

    Asisat Oshoala scored a penalty kick, and Bay FC held on for a 1-0 road win against the Seattle Reign at Lumen Field.

    In the 27th minute, Oshoala sent her penalty into the lower left corner after the Reign were whistled for a foul in the box.

    The win moved Bay (9-12-1) into eighth place, the final playoff position, with four games remaining. The expansion team is tied with Portland for seventh place with 28 points.

    After going unbeaten in seven straight games, the Reign (5-12-5) have now lost three straight.

    ___

    AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

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  • A federal judge in Texas will hear arguments over Boeing’s plea deal in a 737 Max case

    A federal judge in Texas will hear arguments over Boeing’s plea deal in a 737 Max case

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    FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Friday ordered a hearing next month over Boeing’s agreement to plead guilty to conspiracy in connection with the 737 Max jetliner, two of which crashed, killing 346 people.

    Families of some of the passengers killed in the crashes object to the agreement. They want to put Boeing on trial, where it could face tougher punishment.

    U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor set a hearing for Oct. 11 in Fort Worth, Texas.

    Boeing is accused of misleading regulators who approved minimal, computer-based training for Boeing 737 pilots before they could fly the Max. Boeing wanted to prevent regulators from requiring training in flight simulators, which would have raised the cost for airlines to operate the plane.

    The Justice Department argued in court filings that conspiracy to defraud the government is the most serious charge it can prove. Prosecutors said they lack evidence to show that Boeing’s actions caused the crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia.

    Relatives of victims and their lawyers have called the settlement a sweetheart deal that fails to consider the loss of so many lives. Some of the lawyers have argued that the Justice Department treated Boeing gently because the company is a big government contractor.

    The agreement calls for Boeing to pay a fine of at least $243.6 million, invest $455 million in compliance and safety programs, and be placed on probation for three years.

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  • OceanGate employee pushes back against idea of ‘desperation’ to complete missions

    OceanGate employee pushes back against idea of ‘desperation’ to complete missions

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    A key employee with the company that owned the experimental submersible that imploded en route to the wreckage of the Titanic pushed back at a question from a Coast Guard investigator about whether OceanGate felt a sense of “desperation” to complete the dives because of the high price tag.

    Amber Bay, director of administration for the company that owned the doomed Titan submersible, insisted Tuesday that the company would not “conduct dives that would be risky just to meet a need.”

    But she agreed that the company wanted to deliver for those who paid $250,000 and were encouraged to participate as “mission specialists.”

    “There definitely was an urgency to deliver on what we had offered and a dedication and perseverance towards that goal,” she told a Coast Guard panel.

    OceanGate co-founder Stockton Rush was among the five people who died when the submersible imploded in June 2023.

    The Coast Guard opened a public hearing earlier this month that is part of a high level investigation into the cause of the implosion. Some of the testimony has focused on the troubled nature of the company.

    On Tuesday, Bay pushed back at earlier testimony from Antonella Wilby, a former OceanGate contractor who said Bay told her “you don’t seem to have an explorer mindset” after she raised safety concerns. Bay said Wilby’s concerns were noted at the time and treated with respect. Bay added that her own duties did not include engineering or operations.

    She later broke down in tears when discussing the tragedy, which was personal, because she knew the victims.

    “I had the privilege of knowing the explorers lives who were lost,” Bay said through tears. “And there’s not a day that passes that I don’t think of them, their families and the loss.”

    Earlier in the hearings, former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge said he frequently clashed with Rush and felt the company was committed only to making money. “The whole idea behind the company was to make money,” Lochridge testified. “There was very little in the way of science.”

    Lochridge and other previous witnesses painted a picture of a company that was impatient to get its unconventionally designed craft into the water. The accident set off a worldwide debate about the future of private undersea exploration.

    On Tuesday, submersible pilot and designer Karl Stanley of the Roatan Institute of Deepsea Exploration testified to provide perspective about deep-sea submersible operations and safety. He said the phenomenon of “billionaires courting scientists” has upset the economics of the industry.

    Stanley also said he viewed OceanGate’s characterization of paid passengers as “mission specialists” to be an attempt to avoid accountability.

    “It’s clearly a dodge with trying to get around U.S. regulations with passengers,” Stanley said.

    Additionally, the company’s “entire business plan made zero sense,” Stanley said. He also said he felt the implosion ultimately stemmed from Rush’s desire to leave his mark on history.

    “There was nothing unexpected about this. This was expected by everyone who had access to a little bit of information,” Stanley said.

    The hearing is expected to run through Friday and include several more witnesses, some of whom were closely connected to the company.

    Businessman Guillermo Sohnlein, who helped found OceanGate with Rush, said during testimony Monday that he hoped a silver lining of the disaster is that it will inspire a renewed interest in exploration, including the deepest waters of the world’s oceans.

    “This can’t be the end of deep ocean exploration. This can’t be the end of deep-diving submersibles and I don’t believe that it will be,” he said.

    Coast Guard officials noted at the start of the hearing that the submersible had not been independently reviewed, as is standard practice. That and Titan’s unusual design subjected it to scrutiny in the undersea exploration community.

    OceanGate, based in Washington state, suspended its operations after the implosion. The company has no full-time employees currently, but has been represented by an attorney during the hearing.

    During the submersible’s final dive on June 18, 2023, the crew lost contact after an exchange of texts about Titan’s depth and weight as it descended. The support ship Polar Prince then sent repeated messages asking if Titan could still see the ship on its onboard display.

    When the submersible was reported overdue, rescuers rushed ships, planes and other equipment to an area about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Wreckage of the Titan was subsequently found on the ocean floor about 330 yards (300 meters) off the bow of the Titanic, Coast Guard officials said. No one on board survived.

    OceanGate said it has been fully cooperating with the Coast Guard and NTSB investigations since they began. Titan had been making voyages to the Titanic wreckage site going back to 2021.

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